[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

[Marc Paré]

Le 2010-09-30 07:21, Graham Lauder a écrit :
> A group of the marketing and communication peoples got together to get our
> heads around Vision and  Mission Statement.  Everyone brainstormed what they
> saw as the core values of Mageia to give a direction that the Projects Vision
> and mission statement could head.
>
> The reasoning behind this is it points a figurative arrow at our  primary
> target market and thus gives us a guide toward where our branding should be
> aimed.
>
> A mistake that is often made is branding from an internal aesthetic when in
> fact branding should be more aimed externally to attract a new demographic.
> If the gods are in alignment then ideally it should point toward our principle
> point of difference and again this influences our branding choices in terms of
> Colour Pallet Logo and so forth.
>
> The "feel" to me that came from the brainstorming was that Mageia could be
> marketed as the "Family Distro".   This being a principle point of difference
> when a user makes a decision as to what operating system to run.
>
> Our principle competitor, MS competes against the Linux universe as a whole
> but other distros compete for the MS user base aimed at particular
> Demographics. For instance:
> OpenSUSE aims at the "Power User" Market
> Ubuntu aims at the young individual end of the market
> CentOS at Community enterprise and Not For Profits
> Fedora at the Computing Professional
>
> Mageia could therefore aim at the Young Married professional market, being the
> Distro that could be installed on the home computer and geared so that the
> whole family could use it.
>
> So for instance as well as the standard software, educational programmes would
> be installed by default, be NetSafe (Dans Guardian), have OOo4Kids installed
> as well as a full office suite, Tuxtype, TuxPaint and so on.
>
> Documentation added to show parents how to set up accounts for the kids and
> how to make it Net safe.
>
> I think that this is an untapped market right now and something that the
> project could leverage into a marketing campaign and guide us in terms of
> branding.
>
> Comments?
>
> Cheers
> GL
>

I think that if you target the software packages that are compatible 
with Educational software advocated by educational organizations, we 
could make quite large inroads in the adaptability of Mageia.For 
example, when marketing the OS, emphasis on the distro that can carry 
your kids through their educational paths with such packages as 
OpenOffice (soon to be LibreOffice -- make sure the MSWorks plug-in is 
also included) compatible with MSOffice; GIMP similar to Photoshop and 
some plugins are compatible; Freemind mindmapping; etc. If Mageia 
concentrated on making these software packages work solidly then you 
could have a good run at competing with other linux distros in the 
educational field.

BTW, in Canada, many school boards still use the Novel Netware setups 
and they are just now in the midst of planning out its replacement. My 
school board for example will have to replace close to 10,000 units if 
they were to move to a Linux setup. I sat in on a meeting about 5 years 
ago to hear out a RehHat re-seller's pitch. Most school boards are 
almost at the break point and will be actively looking for new 
networking/desktop solutions.

So, compatibility with educational software. The distro should also be 
an easy install for everyone and GUI run. If we are going to make it and 
contend with other distros, the majority of users want a GUI run install 
where everything works right away. There should be as little fiddling 
around as possible. Install (15-20 minutes), then, register user 
accounts, shares for accounts, re-name the computer to instill a sense 
of ownership to the user (rather than having your computer called 
"localhost" all the time, and then you are done! (Cups and 3d should be 
installed automatically during the install phase). Make the install as 
easy as possible.

The next is a distro with games and solid multi-player game setups that 
work. Get the distro to play nice with WOW and other popular games. This 
will kill the competition and grab kids attention. Have a Mageia games 
advocate(s) who periodically send out "snazzy" e-newsletters and a 
"Magei Games Korner" on the website to foster gamesmanship on the 
distro. Get the kids talking about the "rock-solid" install of WOW (for 
example) using Wine -- the distro should come "hard wired" to play! and 
rock!

Have a great advocacy group that will stand up to Mageia bashing and 
hand out comparative studies on the distro's performance and keep the 
name in the headlines with such sites as LinuxToday.com. Be proactive 
rather reactive to Linux possibilities of use where it can rationalized 
as a good replacement desktop distro.

Sorry for the long note.

Cheers

Marc